


Helics and Leopards and Feelings, Oh My

by kayleeschuyler (stephaniebithell)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Caring Hunk, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Homesickness, Langst, caring keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 02:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephaniebithell/pseuds/kayleeschuyler
Summary: The team have been contacted by a planet of barbarian, bear like warriors who want to join the Voltorn Alliance.  Their ice bound planet seems to be stirring up more than just snow with Lance acting strangely.  Can the rest of the team work out what is wrong with their Blue Paladin before the snow buries them and their lions?





	Helics and Leopards and Feelings, Oh My

“Remember, this entire planet is as dangerous as a jumping Flixabrum on a pink moon,” Coran said from his station back on the castle.

They had received a message from the inhabitants of Duscara, an ice covered planet, saying they wanted to join the Voltron Alliance a quintet ago.  Upon hearing this, Allura had immediately entered the coordinates into the Castle of Lions.  She explained that the species that lived there were fierce, bear like warriors, who preferred the berserker style of fighting rather than the more civilized style that the Paladins used.  Shiro had questioned bringing them in to fight if they couldn’t be controlled but Coran proposed that, with the correct strategy, their style of fighting can be the tipping point of a battle.

“Could it get any colder?” Keith growled as the five paladins trudged through the snow. 

It had been only a varga since they had arrived into orbit of the planet and already it felt like his armour was not doing its job of keeping him warm.  He noticed that his teammates all had their arms wrapped tightly around their bodies as if the icy wind was blowing straight through them.  Red was being particularly cocky at the moment as Keith was forced to listen to her chuckle at his complaining.  She, along with Black, Yellow and Green were all back safe and warm in the castle while Blue had been the one to carry all the paladins planet side.

“Well technically the temperature is known to drop another 200 helics on particularly cold days,” Coran answered through the coms in their helmets.

“Helics?  What is a helic?” Hunk asked as he looked over at Lance with a curious face.  Lance responded with a simple shrug of confusion.

“It’s a helic,” Coran said not really knowing how to describe it.

“Dropping 200 helics would be like it dropping 100 degrees Fahrenheit back on Earth,” Pidge said as she held up the holo-screen on her arm.

“Thank you Number 5.  Yes it could drop another 100…degrees Farenbite? at the drop of a hat so please be careful.”

“Aren’t we always?” Shiro said with a chuff.

“Did you just make a joke?” Lance asked as he tried to keep himself warm.  Turning to look at the others, “did he actually just make a joke?”

“Uh, I think so?” Shiro said awkwardly before he spotted the entrance to the cave system that the Duscaran’s had described to them.  “Look we made it!”

“Finally, now we can get warm,” Keith called as he dashed off ahead of the group.

“Sounds good to me,” Lance cried as he sped up his walk but not actually running after Keith like he normally would.

\---

The caves were huge.  Lance figured it was because of the massive size of the Duscaran’s.  They were easily 9ft tall, covered in red fur and honestly looked like bears back on Earth.  Seheir was their leader, standing over a foot taller than the rest and his fur had white streaks through it showing that while he was older he was still in his prime.

“Welcome Paladins of Voltron,” Seheir said in a deep rough voice.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Shiro replied, “I hope that we can be great allies in this war.”  Lance noticed that even though Shiro was the tallest of all the Paladins, he was dwarfed by this insanely large red bear and while he would normally chuckle at that image he just didn’t have the energy to do that. 

“You ok buddy?” Hunk asked as he sidled up to Lance had been standing close to the open fire in the middle of the room.

“Yeah.  Why?” Lance asked as he held his hands out trying to warm them up.

“You don’t look so great.”

“Well thanks Hunk.  I know I forgot to put my face mask on last night but you didn’t have to call me out on it in front of all these new people,” Lance grumbled.

Hunk held out his hands in surrender, “I didn’t mean it like that Lance, I just wanted to know if you were feeling ok that’s all.”

Lance sighed, “Sorry man.  I’m ok, I swear.”

Hunk nodded silently before turning away to face the others who were all standing around haphazardly.  Pidge was typing something into her holo-screen, Keith was talking to one of the warriors in the room and gesturing at their weapon, a large club that had blades coming out of the top and Shiro was talking with Seheir quietly.

Lance could feel the warmth creeping back into his body and smiled, he hated the cold, always had ever since he was a child.  He was focusing so much on keeping warm that he didn’t hear Shiro call out to the team, “Lance!”

“Sorry Shiro!” he called as he walked away from the flames regretfully.

“The Duscaran’s have agreed to join our Alliance on the condition that we help them with a problem they having with a creature here.  It has been attacking their settlements and killing their people for the past few months.  Our job will be to track it down and kill it before it can take any more lives.”

“What is this creature?  What could possibly kill Duscaran’s?” Keith asked as he glanced over at Seheir.

“We don’t know what this creature is, but it is twice the size of a regular Duscaran.  Its fur is as white as the snow and it is so stealthy that we never hear it coming until it is too late,” Seheir explained, “I would suggest you pair up and start searching now while the weather is good, if a snow storm hits you will probably perish.”

“Hunk, I want you and Pidge to team up and head to the East.  Keith, you are with Lance and I want you to take the West.  I will go with Seheir to the South and if we don’t have any luck we will all take the North together,” Shiro said.

“We need to be careful that we don’t get hypothermia out there so I want you all to keep an eye on your partner-“

“I have that covered Shiro,” Pidge interrupted, “I modified our armour to monitor our vitals when we are wearing them.  I can just set the parameters to send an alarm to us all if any of our temperatures start getting out the healthly ranges.”

“Wow Pidge, that is amazing!” Hunk said patting her on the head, before ducking away as she swiped at him.

\---

In the time that it took for Pidge to calibrate her new system the temperature had dropped again.  Keith shuddered at the thought of going back out into the cold but knew he had to do it, he just wished that he was in Red where it was nice and warm.  Glancing at Lance who had snuck back to the fire again, he wondered what was wrong with his so called ‘rival’.  Lance had been acting strangely the whole day.  He had barely risen to the challenge that Keith had given him that morning to see who could eat their meal the fastest,  

“Be on the lookout everyone, Seheir says that this is the time when the creature usually attacks,” Shiro’s voice sounded through their helmets.

“Roger.”

“Got it.”

“Sure.”

 As the rest of the team started to file out of the main cave they had been standing in for the past varga Keith noticed that Lance had failed to respond to Shiros command and had still yet to move from the fire.  “Lance?” Keith asked as he moved over to his teammate, “You ok?”

“I’m fine.  Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Lance growled back as he continued to stay as close as possible to the fire, perhaps too close.

“Uh…” Keith faltered as he internally recoiled from the unusual ferocity in Lance’s voice, “Look I just want to get this over as quickly as you do.  Shiro’s already given the order to head out so how about you cut the attitude and start moving?”

Keith flinched at the glare that Lance sent his way as he seemed to draw in the last of the heat the fire could give him before he proceeded to stalk right past the red paladin and into the maze like cave system.  But not before hissing out an aggressive, “You coming or what?”

\---

Sighing, Keith shook his head and followed Lance out into the snow.  In the year or so that they had been in space together, Keith had never seen Lance act like this.  Sure he could be temperamental at times, but usually it was due to the fact that he had noticed something that the rest of them had missed during a briefing.  The first few times it had happened, Keith is ashamed to admit that he was one of the first that would brush Lance’s concerns off.  Only Hunk and Coran seemed to have had unwavering confidence in Lance’s abilities to think outside the box and come up with strategies that usually ended up saving their necks more than once. 

If only they had listened to him instead of constantly ignoring him or telling him to be quiet and stop interrupting them as they tried to plan.  After the fourth time it had happened, Lance had finally blown up at the team, calling them all blunder heads, and that if they weren’t going to take him seriously when he was actually trying to help them then maybe he should stop trying and see where that got them.  After he had spectacularly stormed out of the briefing room, Hunk had turned on the others and proceeded to rip them all a new one.

Keith still shivered at the memory of Hunk, sweet sunshine child, would never harm a fly Hunk, turning on them in anger and betrayal on behalf of his best friend and verbally berating them on how they are supposed to be a team and have each other’s backs.  It took them a few varga before they were dismissed from their impromptu lecture on teamwork and how to treat each other and sent to their rooms to consider how to act in the future.  Admittedly it had taken Keith not long at all before he realised that he was probably one of the worst culprits of treating Lance and the others badly.  It was another varga before he had made the decision to track Lance down and apologise and hope that the other boy forgave him or at least to the point that he would tolerate Keith.  Hell he would even take the taller boy hitting him if that is what it took to earn his forgiveness.

Luckily for Keith’s face, Lance didn’t punch him, no matter how much he deserved it.  In fact, once Keith had apologised, stumbling over his words and failing to actually say what he wanted, Lance had cracked up in laughter and forgave him right there on the spot.  Hunk had been observably disappointed in Lance’s quickness to forgive the many slights that had been pitted against him, especially when he forgave Shiro, Pidge and Allura just as quickly.  But Lance had simply pointed out that there was no reason for him to hold a grudge when they had all been honest in their apologies.

\---

The wind was howling outside the caves as Keith finally caught up with Lance.  Having to jog slightly to keep up with the other’s longer legs, Keith internally cursed his shorter stature, not for the first time. 

“Oi Lance.  Wait up would you?”

“Why should I?” 

“Because we are supposed to be a team remember?  How am I supposed to help you find this killer beast if I can’t keep up with you?” Keith said as tried to keep up and ended up slamming into Lance’s back when he stopped suddenly.

“Fine.  I’ll slow down you for as long as you stop complaining!” Lance snapped before taking off again, thankfully at a slower and more manageable pace.

The wind and snow continued to pelt at the paladins as they trudged through the freezing tundra, the temperature constantly dropping by the dobash.  Keith kept a wary eye on the temperature gauge that Pidge had built and made a note that it was starting to get close to the danger zone.  It felt like it had been more than the single varga since they had left the cave system when a call came through their helmets.

“Keith.  Lance.  You there?” Shrio’s voice called out.

“Yeah Shiro.  We are here.  What’s up?” Keith said as he glanced over at Lance’s hunched figure as they continued to walk.

“Hunk and Pidge just called in and said they found the creature.  Turns out it was this world’s version of a snow leopard.  They managed to subdue it so that the Duscaran’s can deal with it themselves and it’s time to come back.”

“A snow leopard huh?  Ok, roger that Shiro, we are heading back now, though it might take us a varga or so to get to you.” Keith said as he tapped Lance’s shoulder and nodded his head back the way they came.

“Ok but be careful, Seheir said that it looks like a blizzard is coming right for you guys.”

“Alright, we’ll see you when we get back.”  Keith replied as he looked over at Lance again.  The boy had been silent the entire time they had been walking since his last outburst about Keith complaining about his speed.  He was starting to get worried about Lance.  He had never seen him so quiet, not even when things hadn’t been going great between the team during the days that they thought he was just a loudmouthed idiot. 

“Hey Lance.  Did you catch all that?”

Lance barely turned to look back at Keith, not even faltering in his steps, “Obviously.”

Keith felt his back stiffen at the sound of discontentment in Lance’s voice.  Seriously the guy could have frozen Keith over with the iciness if he wasn’t already half frozen from the environment.  Actually, now that Keith thought about it, maybe that was what was wrong with him.  Lance had grown up in Cuba, a tropical paradise where the temperature never got low enough to snow and the he moved to Arizona to study at the Garrison.  So he was probably just as cold and miserable as Keith was with the weather and was a grumpy winter child.  Though the only flaw in Keith’s brilliant deduction was that Lance had been off even at breakfast, before they had even arrived on the planet.

Deciding that it was going to be easier to get them both back to the caves before the blizzard hit than try and decipher whatever Lance’s problem was while they were both miserable and cold, Keith continued to push on.  Surely it wouldn’t get any worse before they made it.

\---

It had gotten worse.  Lance could feel it in his bones long before he had spotted the dark storm cloud brewing in the exact direction that he and Keith were walking.  He knew that there was no way that they would make it back to the caves and the others before the storm hit.  They would have to find a shelter to wait it out and hope that the temperature didn’t drop before it became critical to their health.  He glanced over at Keith, he knew he had been extraordinarily rude to his friend that day, hell he had been rude to Hunk as well.  But considering what today was and the fact that it was too quiznacking cold, Lance just didn’t have the energy to feel that sorry.

“Hey Keith,” he called over the now screaming wind. 

Keith’s head snapped up to look over at Lance in surprise, “Yeah?” he replied almost hesitantly.

“I think we should try and find some shelter.  That storm is going to hit us pretty quickly and I don’t want to get caught up in it.”

Keith looked over to the gathering storm clouds that Lance had pointed out and nodded.  “Yeah, I think I remember seeing a cave system in the area when we came this way earlier.”

Lance silently thanked Keith’s keen sense of direction when it came to landmarks.  It had come in handy more than once in their adventures.  “You reckon you can find them again?”

“I can try,” Keith said before straightening up and starting to look for the shapes that would give them sanctuary. 

Lance glanced back at the storm clouds and balked at how quickly they were moving.  Not even a dobash had passed since he had last looked at them and already they had become bigger and darker, indicating that they were much more deadly than he had first thought. 

“Found them!” Keith’s voice rang out only a few dobash’s later.  As he grabbed Lance’s hand and dragged him towards the blurry shapes that Lance could barely make out in the flurry.

“Just in the nick of time,” Lance said as they raced into the small cave just as the storm started to arrive. 

“I’ll try and radio Shiro and let him know we aren’t going to make it back for a while.” Keith said as he let go of Lance’s hand and moved away to talk to Shiro.

Lance gave Keith as much privacy as he could in the small shelter they had found as he moved around to see if there were any hidden pockets or previous owners of the cave.  Once he was satisfied that there was only one entrance and no surprise visitors waiting for them he moved back to where Keith was now sitting on the ground.

“So what did Shiro say?” Lance asked, flinching at his own tone.

Keith looked up with a similar flinch, “To sit tight and wait it out.  Once the storm dies down where they are they are going to send out a party to come get us.  From the sounds of it, it is going to be a few varga before it’s safe to venture out and we might even get snowed in.”

“Will they even be able to find us in all of that?”

“Yeah I thought that too but turns out Pidge decided to put a tracker in all of our suits in case of emergencies.”

“Sneaky little gremlin,” Lance said with the first smile he had had all day.

So…” Keith said nervously, “Since we are going to be stuck in here for a while with nothing to do.  Do you want to tell me what is bothering you?”

Lance slowly blinked a couple of times.  “Oh, um…  Look it’s just something personal, it’s not something you did or anything…  Just…um.”

“Look I get it.  Sometimes I have a bad day too but it feels like more than that.  I want to respect your privacy and I will.  But I had hoped that we had finally gotten to the point where we could talk about these things.  You know, like when I tell you I am having a day where I don’t want to be half galra.”

Lance sighed as he sat down, “We are Keith.  It’s just… I’m not used to actually talking to people about things that are bothering me.  I talk a lot, I know,” he said as he saw Keith’s snort of disbelief, “But it’s usually about everyone else.  Not me.”

“But what about Hunk?  Don’t you tell him everything?”

“Not really.  Half the time he just knows without me saying anything and the rest of the time I manage to turn the conversation back onto something that he is dealing with at the time.  I’m good like that.  Deflecting.  It’s something I’ve always done, thinking back on it now.”

“So…” Keith prompted gently, “What is it today?  What has you so out of whack that even _I_ noticed it?”

Lance had to smile at that, Keith probably was the most socially inept but at the same time, which made him so much more aware of what his closest friends were like.  “Back on Earth…  I… My little sister would be sixteen today.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry.” Keith said sadly.  He knew that he couldn’t truly understand how Lance was feeling, being an only child himself, but he could try.

“I know that sounds silly but in my family, when a girl turns sixteen she finally becomes a woman.  We usually have this huge celebration where she is the princess.  It’s probably just as big as a wedding to be honest.  Costs just as much.  But they are full of laughter, joy, family, love and everything else that makes us one.”

Lance felt his heart clench, “I guess it just hit me this morning.  I have missed the past year of my family’s lives.  It usually takes at least a year to plan those parties and I had a whole folder ready to go with things that we had talked about since were kids.  She is my only younger sibling, the rest are all older than I am, by a few years as well so she and I were pretty close.”

“I just want to be there for her on her big day.  Maybe she has finally asked out that boy she has been crushing on forever.  Or maybe she decided that she likes girls instead.  Or that she doesn’t want to date at the moment.”  Lance knew he was crying now, and not like how they do in the movies.  He was an ugly crier, snot and wheezing included.

“Lance.” Keith stood up from where he had been sitting opposite Lance and sat down so that they were touching side by side.  “I can’t promise you that we are going to go back home right away.  I mean this war… This war has already been going on for over ten thousand years, it’s not going to go away overnight.  But what I can promise you is this.  I will make sure you get home, one way or another.  You will see your family again.  You will be able to give your sister a huge hug and tell her all your adventures.”

Lance looked over at Keith.  He was truly grateful for his friend being there and not giving up on him.  Leaning over he wrapped his arms around the startled red paladin.  “Thank you Keith.”

“You would do the same for me,” Keith said as he joined Lance in the hug.  “So can you tell me more about your sister?  What did you have in that book?”

\---

The blizzard ended up blowing for an entire quintant.  By the time that Shiro, Sehier and the rest of the Duscaran’s had found the cave that Lance and Keith had hidden in, they had been completely snowed in.  It took the combined efforts of everyone to move the compacted snow enough to free the paladins. 

Keith and Lance were both completely cried out by the time they had been freed.  Keith was now fully versed in what was required for a young woman’s sixteenth birthday and exactly how Lance had planned his sister’s party.  He knew that she preferred the colour lilac over mauve and that she would rather have pikelets instead of a cake since she hated the sweetness.

When they finally got back to the castle almost two days after they had left, Keith felt that his friendship with Lance had finally progressed to the point that they could be considered best friends.  He made a note to personally hug Lance’s sister when they went home.  And they would go home, if it was the last thing that Keith did.  They were his family and he would do anything to protect his family and to ensure their happiness.  Just like he was sure that they would do the same for him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a lance centric whump fic and somehow it turned in to an almost 4k lance and keith centric langst fic! *throws up my hands in defeat* i don't even know what my writing is doing anymore but at least iI got over my writer's block!


End file.
